


Run

by Moransroar



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Human Eddie Kaspbrak, M/M, Not IT Chapter Two Compliant, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Werewolf Richie Tozier, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:59:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27441568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moransroar/pseuds/Moransroar
Summary: Eddie enjoys taking walks. On one such walk, late at night, he comes face to face with abig fucking dog. He is convinced he is about to die, but Eddie soon learns that wolves are unpredictable.Or; a story whereyoucan decide what happens next.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	Run

When Eddie was in his early twenties, he got into hiking. There had always been something about it that drew him in, something about gathering only the essentials and just venturing out into places he’d never been before, preferably with some nice scenery.

Hell, it didn’t need to be anything particularly long, or go particularly far. Sometimes taking a stroll around the neighborhood was more than enough to satisfy that strange urge to just _get out of the house_. And while, in his early twenties he’d done plenty of hiking, the second he moved to New York and got a big boy job and everything, there was hardly any time to get out there and do what he used to love.

That’s when his love for walks really manifested. In New York, with his nice house and nice job and nice-ish wife. Maybe a combination of all of those things was the driving factor that sent him out of the house on most nights, often despite the exhaustion from work that day. New York wasn’t exactly the best place to go for a nice, long, relaxing walk – but it did enough to take his mind off his day to day stress and responsibilities.

When he moved in with Richie in LA, some time after his divorce, at first he ceased his previous habit for a while.

But then, one night, it seemed that Richie was feeling particularly restless and as he was pulling on his jacket, he called for Eddie, and asked if he wanted to join him on a walk.

Eddie realized, that night, that he hadn’t gone for a walk in ages, and naturally agreed. He discovered that LA was much nicer to walk through than New York, especially if you found a nice trail somewhere quiet, only running into the occasional jogger or someone walking their dog.

So from then on, Eddie took walks again. He went out almost every night, especially on nights when Richie was away, although this time he had to admit that he had much less of a reason to get out of the house than he once did.

Tonight was another one of those nights.

Eddie was reading in front of the silenced television, the flashes of the screen keeping him company as he sat tucked into a corner of their large couch with a book in his lap and reading glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. Richie had told him not to wait up, since a couple of pretty important people were coming to his show, and he would likely stay out with them talking business until the early hours. Or, ‘long after Sesame Street’, as Richie had put it.

Eddie was still puzzled by the way business was conducted in the world of standup comedy sometimes, but he wouldn’t argue. It wouldn’t be the first time it happened, after all.

He put his book down, marking the page he was on _without_ folding the corner of the page like a barbarian, the way he had recently discovered Richie marked the pages of his books whenever he read. They had argued about it, but naturally, to no avail. Both thought they used the superior method of page-marking.

Eddie stood, stretched, and cast a look at the clock, deciding that now was the perfect time for a walk. After, he’d be able to shower and jump directly into bed, since it was already nearing midnight at this point. It was a bit on the late side, but it was perfectly dark, and Eddie knew which paths to take to avoid the worst of LA’s crackheads.

He was quick to change into comfortable walking clothes and shoes, and out the door within just a few minutes, where he took his car to one of the hiking trails just a little farther away from civilization, which he knew to be pretty desolate but well-lit enough at this time. And if anything, he always made sure to carry the pepper spray that Richie had jokingly gifted him the day he arrived in LA. 

With his car parked and his phone securely in the band around his upper arm, Eddie stretched his legs briefly before he set out onto the path trailing away from the bright parking lot and into the semi-darkness.

The moon provided enough light to guide his way in between dim street lanterns, the gravel path winding through a couple of hills and eventually circling back to where he’d parked his car. He knew the path very well, and thus knew that around this time of night, no one dared set foot on it – which was both a blessing and a curse.

Eddie prided himself in being good at his job though. Surely he’d analyzed the risks of taking this path an hour to midnight just fine, too.

But after only half an hour of a path that would take just over an hour to complete, or walking particularly briskly just under an hour, Eddie’s comfortable stroll was disrupted by the sound of a distinct howl, unlike anything he thought he’d ever heard out in the wild. His first thought was coyotes, but… The sound wasn’t shrill enough. He knew what coyotes sounded like, had learned that very quickly living in LA. This sound was deeper, reached farther, and it echoed around the hills in a way that had goosebumps rising on the skin of his arms and the back of his neck.

He stopped in his tracks immediately.

Logically, as he’d hiked in different places that were far more densely populated by different varieties of wildlife, he knew that wolves, unless provoked, really weren’t a big cause for concern. Nevertheless, Eddie was well aware of the fact that he was alone and it was the middle of the night and he would probably be a very easy prey for whatever was out there.

He looked at his watch, and realized he must have been somewhere halfway, so really there was no point in going back. It would have just about the same effect as going forward. In fact, he was convinced that he was probably closer to the end of the trail than he was to the beginning. So a decision was made in a split second, and he continued onward, setting a slightly more brisk pace this time.

Threat or not, he did not feel like being mauled by hungry wolves tonight.

Not to mention that the howl had sounded awfully close, although that was probably the way the sound bounced between the hills around him. Nothing to worry about, he told himself.

Nothing to worry about, he told himself again, five minutes later, when the silence had lulled him into a false sense of security and the rustling of some bushes nearby nearly sent him jumping out of his skin. He quickened his pace.

Absolutely nothing to be scared for, he repeated inside his head, even as he could have sworn he could feel a pair of eyes on him, watching him from somewhere in the dark beyond the dimly-lit path he was still briskly following.

It was just his imagination, he reminded himself, as he could hear footsteps behind himself, a double set of them, as if he was being followed by two people, gravel crunching with every step, the sound quickening when Eddie, too, pushed his powerwalk into a light jog, heart beating faster and faster.

Eddie didn’t often have any reason to admit that he was scared sometimes, too, but right now he was pretty sure that if he got jumped within the next few seconds, his pants were toast.

Foolishly (or bravely, depending on how you look at it), Eddie threw a glance over his left shoulder to make sure that he actually had a reason to be frightened, and he wasn’t followed by a couple of joggers out for a nice, late-night run. But as he looked, a dark figure sped past him on his other side, and when Eddie whipped his head around again to focus his eyes forward he stopped dead in his tracks when suddenly there was something big standing right in front of him.

Eddie yelped and jumped back a step, arms coming up instantly in an attempt at protecting himself, although he knew deep down that it would be feeble against the kind of beast of an animal that was standing right in front of him.

It was large, far larger than anything Eddie had ever come face-to-face with, swathed partially in darkness which made it a little less easy for Eddie to distinguish what exactly he was looking at.

It was too big to be a wolf, definitely too big to be a dog or even a coyote, but it walked and stood unlike a bear. Were there even bears in LA? Eddie wasn’t sure.

The creature’s eyes gleamed at him from where it was watching him from the shadows, until it shifted forward, and both the light from the moon high overhead and from the dim street lantern a couple of yards back aided Eddie in finally understanding what he was looking at. Except… It was hardly possible.

Wolves didn’t get that big.

Wolves did _not_ get that big.

Eddie reached for the fanny pack around his middle with unsteady hands and tried to zip it open and find the pepper spray. At this point, something like that was about to come in very handy, because the wolf was still coming toward him, slow, as if it was stalking him. Like a fucking prey. Eddie was not about to be some dog’s dinner. No fucking way.

So pepper spray it was.

“Good doggy,” Eddie cooed at the wolf, for lack of a better thing to do as he was fumbling for the small can in his fanny-pack. Maybe if he said something, the wolf would realize that it had come face to face with a human, and turn its tail. Eddie had watched enough survival movies and videos to know that it was something that _could_ work. Sometimes.

Clearly not now though, because although the wolf stopped in its tracks, it didn’t turn and run in the opposite direction. As a matter of fact, it seemed to just inspect him closer, head tilting to the side in a manner reminiscent of any regular, curious, domesticated canine. It felt like a Mexican standoff, until the wolf took another step forward again, and Eddie took an automatic step back.

This time, the wolf moved closer with intention – though its body language suggested nothing more than curiosity (not that Eddie realized that at the time though, because at the time he was too busy fumbling frantically for the can of pepper spray until his fingers finally closed around it among the various other things he kept in his fanny-pack during walks). Eddie ripped the pepper spray from his fanny-pack, and for a brief moment the wolf flinched with the sudden movement – until it seemed that they both realized, at the same time, that the bottle of pepper spray was still wrapped in a protective layer of plastic.

As if the wolf knew the danger had ceased, it trotted closer until it could shove its nose right up against Eddie’s chest. Eddie had been too busy trying to tear the plastic off the can to realize that the enormous beast was so close, and he froze on the spot the second a huff of breath fanned across his chest, the warmth of it seeping into his shirt on the cool night.

Eddie made an indignant sound and just about managed to keep a hold of the can of pepper spray – although it had become abundantly clear that he wasn’t going to be using it against the wolf tonight.

As if a fun-sized little can of pepper spray was going to be any help against an animal that could probably swallow him down in two bites if it so wanted to. The mere fact that Eddie wasn’t already dead or at least injured was a mystery, and a miracle. In a flash, Eddie was suddenly grateful that he’d texted Richie that he was going out on a walk. At least that way they’d be able to find his body quicker, as long as they could find his car. Richie knew the places he liked to walk at, so it wouldn’t be a long search.

Jesus.

Eddie wasn’t even dead yet.

The wolf was just…sniffing at him.

It sniffed his chest, and then his neck, which it could reach with an ease that terrified Eddie beyond anything. But aside from some sniffing, and—was that a little lick to the side of his neck?—the wolf did nothing. Absolutely nothing.

In fact, once it was apparently satisfied, it took a step back, admired Eddie for another moment, and then turned and disappeared back into the underbrush lining that section of the path and leaving Eddie standing there on weak knees and with his heart pounding in his throat as if it was looking for a quick escape directly out of his mouth.

Eddie stared for a long time, until it occurred to him that maybe the wolf was just going to get its friends, and then he ran.

He hadn’t run since he’d joined his high school’s track team, but that didn’t matter. He ran the rest of the way, sprinting back toward his car, unlocking it as quickly as possible and only taking a proper breath once he was sitting at the wheel with all the doors and windows locked, knuckles white where his hands gripped the dashboard.

He’d just encountered the largest wolf he had ever seen, and he’d lived to tell the tale.

Adrenaline kept him awake for most of the night, sitting on the couch in the living room, although he must have fallen asleep at a certain point because the next thing he knew Richie was standing in front of him, having just come in from his night out, looking as puzzled as Eddie had been when he’d come face to face with that creature last night and it had just let him walk free.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Richie teased down at him, one brow rising skeptically as he looked Eddie up and down. Only then did Eddie realize he was still dressed the way he had been the night before. Richie just seemed amused, if not ever so slightly cautious, “What the _fuck_ happened to you?”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed that little ficlet! Now, if you'd like me to continue this, you can leave your suggestions for _how_ you'd like this to continue in the comments, or find me on tumblr [@Moransroar](moransroar.tumblr.com).  
> Alternatively to thinking of something yourself, you can also choose from one of these two options: A) Eddie tells Richie what he saw (and potentially Richie tells Eddie about werewolves), or B) Another meeting between the wolf and Eddie, from the wolf's POV.  
> If you thought this was fine as a standalone, that's definitely cool too! Any other comments are always very much appreciated as well :)


End file.
